Washington D.C. – U.S. Representative Ted Budd (R-NC) released the following statement regarding the letter that he and 26 other members sent to OMB Director Mulvaney asking for the inclusion of funding for the Gateway Project in a package of proposed spending cuts:

“I’ve been fighting the Gateway Project since last year. Cost estimates for the project have more than doubled--from $13.5 billion to $29.5 billion, with no end in sight. Meanwhile, New York and New Jersey are two of the wealthiest states in the country, and yet are contributing zero percent of the funds. The president did not get his wall in the Omnibus. Chuck Schumer should not get his tunnel.

The letter sends the same message that my amendment on this issue did: House Republicans do not want this tunnel funded. I’m hopeful that the package of spending cuts that the president sends to Congress will include these funds.”

In July of 2017, House appropriators released a transportation funding bill that included $900 million in funding for the Gateway Project, a rail and tunnel upgrade between Newark, New Jersey and New York City. Later that year, Rep. Ted Budd offered a hotly-debated bipartisan amendment to strip the funding. That amendment received more than 2 to 1 support in the House Republican Conference and broad support among conservative groups. He has published multiple Op-Eds against the project, including one in the Wall Street Journal, as well as sending a letter during Omnibus negotiations to the Speaker signed by 10 Republican members of Congress opposing the project.